BJS FY 2026 National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) Training and Technical Assistance
This cooperative agreement funds technical assistance and performance-measure evaluation to help states, territories, and tribal jurisdictions improve criminal history and related records systems for FBI standards, background checks, privacy, and information sharing.
⚑ Supports direct technical assistance to states, territories, and tribal jurisdictions; includes routine collection and evaluation of performance measures; eligibility not stated in notice.
This is primarily criminal-justice records infrastructure and technical assistance, not the team’s core line of survey, risk-perception, weather, energy, or education-policy research. It has a public-health/justice angle, but for IPPRA this would be a stretch and not PI-level fit.
JUDGED AGAINST THE ROSTER'S PUBLICATION DOSSIER · GPT-5.4-MINI · 2026-08-19
Unit fits — one characterization, each unit's own rules
| IPPRA | 40 partial | peripheral portfolio topic: public_health; signature methods: policy analysis; social/behavioral work is minor; funds technical assistance, not research (capped); eligibility unclear — verify in the NOFO; capped at 40 (non-research funding) |
| Physical Sciences & Engineering (demo) | 35 weak | technical depth: substantial; funds technical assistance (capped) |
| Tom Love Innovation Hub | 10 none | deep-tech content; no commercialization signal |
Description
This program will continue to support activities under the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP), the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP), and portions of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (Pub. L. 117-159) in fiscal year (FY) 2024. Direct technical assistance is provided to states, territories, and tribal jurisdictions to ensure that records systems are developed and managed to conform to FBI standards, ensure jurisdictions are using the most appropriate technologies, and adhere to the highest standards of practice with respect to privacy and confidentiality. This program also routinely collects and evaluates performance measures to assess the level of improvement of state and national records holdings, as well as information sharing and exchanges. BJS has supported the NCHIP TTA program since 1995. This program furthers the DOJ’s mission to reduce violent crime and address gun violence by improving the accuracy, utility, and interstate accessibility of criminal-history and related records in support of national record systems and their use for name- and fingerprint-based criminal history background checks.
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View on Grants.gov → CONTACT: Bureau of Justice Statistics <AskBJS@usdoj.gov>
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